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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26349553">something under the bed is drooling</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue'>MaryPSue</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Calvin &amp; Hobbes, Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(even though one-half doesn't realise she's pining until the end), Case Fic, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, F/F, Mutual Pining, monster hunting</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:34:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,865</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26349553</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryPSue/pseuds/MaryPSue</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Rosalyn is nineteen years old, partway through a math degree, and way, way too grown up to be afraid of monsters under her bed.</p>
<p>...<br/>or, the one where Rosalyn stumbles into an Upside-Down monster hunt, promises a smooch to a stuffed tiger, and somehow winds up with a girlfriend.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Robin Buckley &amp; Steve Harrington, Rosalyn (Calvin and Hobbes)/Robin Buckley</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>104</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>something under the bed is drooling</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So I made <a href="https://marypsue.tumblr.com/post/625767836250472448/marypsue-marypsue-sits-bolt-upright-in-bed">a post about Steve and Rosalyn on a blind date</a>, but when I went to turn it into a fic, Robin presented herself as not only an elegant solution to the question of how those two met, but also as a viable love interest for Rosalyn. And, well, I was born with the gift of crossover femslash and I intend to make it everyone's problem.</p>
<p>If you can guess what other media properties Rosalyn's friends are from, you get bragging rights.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rosalyn is nineteen years old, partway into a math degree, and way, way too grown up to be afraid of monsters under her bed.</p>
<p>College is great, don’t get her wrong. Her classes – <em>most</em> of her classes – are fascinating. Her new friends are fun, funny, interesting. The parties they take her to are exciting. Even her roommate is tolerable. She’s not imagining things because she hates college and wants to go home but can’t admit defeat, like the school counselor suggested when Rosalyn finally caved and went to see if she could get something to help her sleep. She wouldn’t have gone at all, except that coffee just isn’t cutting it anymore. She’s passing out in Stats. And you can’t pass out in Stats.</p>
<p>It just seems so ridiculous in the light of day. When she’s crossing the campus, through the crisp patches of dappled autumn light falling golden through the turning leaves. When she’s got both hands fisted in her hair in frustration, leaning on her elbows as she stares down at the grey blur of thick, tiny black text on a white page, the hush of the library settling on her shoulders like a thick grey blanket. When she’s got a solo cup in one hand and a driving rock beat pounding in her ears. It sounds so stupid to say she’s afraid of a <em>monster</em> under her <em>bed</em>.</p>
<p>But at night, in the dark of the unfamiliar dorm room, with her roommate’s snoring shape nothing but a hunched darker patch against the far wall; with her eyes frozen open, fingers clawed in the quilt she’s wrapped tight around her head, watching the play of shadow and darker shadow across the dorm room’s nubbly grey carpet and listening breathlessly to the uncomfortably <em>organic</em> sounds that seem to be coming up through her mattress –</p>
<p>Well. It doesn’t seem so ridiculous then.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Robin’s still trying to work out if her roommate likes girls or not.</p>
<p>Said roommate’s doing math or engineering or something else that involves a lot of numbers. Robin’s never been so interested in numbers, unless they’re a time signature. Or they come behind a dollar sign. She’s got herself a commissary job and one at the writing centre, and she’s on track to have her entire tuition paid, for her first year at least. Barring any more unforeseen…Scoops Ahoy situations.</p>
<p>Her roommate doesn’t seem to have a job. She spends most of her time at the library or at some frat party or sporting event, when she’s not in class. Robin doesn’t think they’ve been in the same room and awake at the same time long enough to exchange more than maybe ten sentences. She really doesn’t know anything about Rosalyn at all, except that Rosalyn drinks a lot of coffee and seems to have an obscene amount of energy. Or – not <em>energy</em>, maybe, but – drive. Focus. Ambition. Something. She puts one hundred percent of herself into everything she does and never backs down. Robin, who has perfected the art of the half-ass, gets exhausted just watching her.</p>
<p>There’s really nothing glaring to make Robin think they might share a secret. Except – Rosalyn never brings anybody back from those parties. She hasn’t brought anybody back to the dorm room at all. She hasn’t kicked Robin out for the night once, hasn’t ever hung a sock or a scrunchie on the doorknob. (Not like the Ericas down the hall, who had an entire war over who got to have a guest stay in the room and who had to sleep in the student lounge down the hall. Apparently that had ended in a party and they’re friends again. Robin doesn’t actually care, except that it means they won’t be screaming at each other in the hallways and banging on their dorm room door at midnight anymore.)</p>
<p>And the only time Rosalyn talks about boys is when she’s complaining about her ex Charlie, who’d apparently broken up with her after she’d cancelled one too many dates. And Robin came home one time and noticed their shoes had all been arranged neatly on a brand-new rack by the door. Which means Rosalyn’s definitely seen the doodles on Robin’s Chucks up close and personal. But she hasn’t said a word about it. And she doesn’t look at Robin weird, or avoid her – at least, any more than she already kind of did.</p>
<p><em>And</em>, she only ever seems to wear a uniform of shapeless sweatshirts, baggy pants, and sneakers, with her silky blonde hair always in a careless ponytail. And she only puts on makeup if she’s going to a party, and sometimes not even then. And –</p>
<p>Okay. So maybe Robin’s doing a little wishful thinking.</p>
<p>But still. She left Hawkins because she wanted to see more of the world. A world that (she hopes) has other people like her in it. She’s allowed a little hope. A little noticing-patterns-that-maybe-aren’t-really-patterns. A little wishful thinking.</p>
<p>“Just ask her,” Steve says, on the phone, on their weekly call. Robin can picture his shrug even through the phone line.</p>
<p>She sighs, winding the spiralling phone cord around and around one finger. “<em>Steve.</em>”</p>
<p>“What? You said it didn’t seem like she had an issue -”</p>
<p>“Didn’t <em>seem</em>.” Robin looks at the reddening tip of her finger, the place where it’s turning white around where the cord’s starting to cut off her circulation. She can feel her pulse in it. She starts to unwind the cord again. “And I have to live with this girl for the rest of the year. What if she <em>does</em> have an issue and just hasn’t put two and two together yet? I mean -”</p>
<p>She looks around to make sure the student lounge is still empty. It is. Still, Robin drops her voice, turning the phone’s receiver in closer towards her mouth and her face towards the fake-wood panelling around the pay phone. “I remember in seventh grade, Jennifer B told everyone that Alice Cutler was a dyke, and they still wouldn’t change if Alice was in the locker room in twelfth.”</p>
<p>To Steve’s credit, he doesn’t tell Robin she’s overthinking or exaggerating. He’s just quiet for a bit, before he says, “Well, it’s a bad idea to start dating somebody you have to live with, anyway.”</p>
<p>“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”</p>
<p>“Did it work?”</p>
<p>“Of course not, dingus.” Robin gives the phone cord a twirl, like it’s a jump rope. “Actually, speaking of awkwardly changing the subject, there was one other thing I wanted to ask you guys about. Remember those dog-lizards you told me about? And that thing at the Byers’ house?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Steve says. There’s a wary note in his voice.</p>
<p>Robin grabs the phone cord in her fist to stop it from bouncing. “Weird question, promise you won’t laugh.”</p>
<p>“That’s a big promise.”</p>
<p>“Shut up, or I’m buying you a stupid hat with the college logo for Christmas. And you’ll never be able to get rid of it or I’ll be so offended.” Robin drums her fingers on the wall behind her before she asks, “What did they sound like?”</p>
<p>“<em>Sound</em> like?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. What did the monsters sound like?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>When Robin corners Rosalyn to announce she’s having an out-of-town guest, Rosalyn gladly volunteers to sleep in the student lounge.</p>
<p>“Oh, it’s cool,” Robin says. “Steve’s just a friend. I’m not hanging the metaphorical scrunchie on the doorknob.”</p>
<p>So Rosalyn’s excuse is gone. Which is bad, because the noises from under the bed that definitely aren’t a monster are getting worse. Louder. And clearer. And closer. And she’s almost certain she’s seen the shadow of something like a tentacle creeping across the floor in the dark.</p>
<p>She’s also very, <em>very</em> sleep-deprived, though. So there’s that.</p>
<p>Steve turns out to be a guy with a look of perpetual confusion, a great smile, and a weak attempt at a moustache. Robin asks a weirdly pointed question about what Rosalyn thinks of his hair, and seems a little too pleased with herself when Rosalyn studies his highlighted waves and comes up with, “It’s all right?” She’s not going to be mean to Robin’s guest, at least not for no reason, but she’s also not sure the hair is his most notable feature when that sad excuse for a moustache is staring her down. And when he’s wearing a Hawkins Tigers sweatshirt that’s cut off to show his navel and has what Rosalyn’s pretty sure is a bear trap in his duffel bag.</p>
<p>Rosalyn really hopes Robin’s question doesn’t mean she’s going to try to set Rosalyn up with Steve. She doesn’t think she has a <em>type</em>, exactly – four years of Charlie makes it hard to tell – but if she did, Steve wouldn’t be it.</p>
<p>Still. Him being there makes it easy for Rosalyn to make excuses to avoid hanging around the dorm. Even if she’s only making those excuses to herself, because admitting she’s scared of a monster under her bed feels too much like admitting defeat.</p>
<p>And Rosalyn’s never been good at admitting defeat.</p>
<p>She tells Robin not to expect her back until late. But her friends, somehow, have all managed to make themselves scarce. Maddie’s got a massive lab report that she’d put off to work on some…ghost thing with her boyfriend, Erica G’s gone tearing off home for the weekend because of some absurd emergency her brother and <em>her</em> boyfriend got themselves into, and Carla’s got a date with some New Age loser. So Rosalyn stays at the library until closing, trying to beat the contents of the Stats classes she’d fallen asleep in into her brain.</p>
<p>She’s hoping that, by the time she gets back to the dorm, Robin and Steve will have found something more interesting to do than sit around in a college dorm throwing popcorn at each other and swapping embarrassing stories about their mutual friends, who all seem to be high school juniors for some reason. Maybe, if Rosalyn’s lucky, they’ll have found themselves a house party where people will appreciate Steve’s crop top, and won’t be back until morning.</p>
<p>Rosalyn, of course, should have known better than to hope for luck.</p>
<p>The first thing she thinks when she opens the door to the dorm room is that she was right about the bear trap. The second thing she thinks is that Robin, as a roommate, has just been demoted from ‘tolerable’.</p>
<p>Her “Hey, Robin, I’m back” turns into “aaaand what the <em>fuck!</em> <em>What</em> do you think you’re doing!” mid-word. Robin and her friend both freeze, staring at Rosalyn. Robin has the nerve to give her a little wave.</p>
<p>Rosalyn should just turn right back around and shut the door behind her. Go find the RA and request a different roommate assignment. Preferably immediately. Try not to heave a sigh of relief as she bunks down in the student lounge for the night.</p>
<p>Instead, she lets the door bang shut behind her, looks Robin square in the eye, and catches herself using her best ‘babysitting-for-Calvin’ voice to say, “You jerks <em>better</em> not be planning what I think you’re planning with that hairspray and that lighter! Do you have any idea how much shit we’ll be in if you set off the sprinklers?”</p>
<p>Robin guiltily tucks both objects behind her back, the look of surprise falling off her face, her usual could-care-less look slamming back into place. Rosalyn catches herself wondering if it’s been a façade this whole time. “This…isn’t what it looks like?”</p>
<p>“I don’t even know what it <em>looks</em> like!” Rosalyn finds her eyes drawn back to the bear trap, open and anchored right at the place where she puts her feet down over the edge of the bed every morning. “Other than maybe -” She pinches the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger, squeezing her eyes shut. “<em>Please</em> tell me neither of you knows a kid named Calvin.”</p>
<p>Steve tosses his head back, flicking a dangling lock out of his face. He doesn’t make even a cursory effort to hide the bat with nails hammered through it that he’s gripping in both hands. “Hey, Rosalyn.”</p>
<p>He pauses, for a moment, before asking, “Did you know you’ve got monsters under your bed?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There’s a hole in the carpet under Rosalyn’s bed, a rotted-looking hole with crumbling edges that punches right down through the floor and explains the smell Robin’s been blaming on her wet shower bag. It’s full of fetid darkness and maybe big enough for Robin to put her arm in up to the elbow.</p>
<p>She doesn’t put her arm in it. Obviously.</p>
<p>Rosalyn looks at it with a combination of revulsion, disbelief, and – something else. It’s kind of like the hardened resignation Robin saw on Steve’s face when they’d found it there in the first place. But Rosalyn’s never dealt with the Upside Down, didn’t even know what it was, so she can’t have the same feeling of ‘oh no, here we go again’ that Robin’s starting to feel herself developing.</p>
<p>It’s interesting, though. Robin was expecting some kind of protest from Rosalyn. Disbelief. Yelling. Something about how she and Steve are both crazy and Rosalyn’s calling the RA and the police. But after that initial snap at Robin for almost setting off the sprinkler system, Rosalyn didn’t seem too fazed. Actually, Robin would say that Rosalyn’s mostly been just…exasperated.</p>
<p>Right now, she’s crouched on the balls of her feet in front of the hole, in the space where her bedframe was before they pushed it aside to show her the hole. She gives it a long look, and pokes at the edge with one finger until a piece of it collapses like the skin of a rotted-soft piece of fruit and goes crumbling away into whatever hell dimension lies on the other side.</p>
<p>“You <em>did</em> know you had monsters under your bed,” Robin accuses her, and Rosalyn looks up like Robin saying something kind of loud and unexpected is the most startling thing that’s happened to her all day. Who <em>is</em> this girl?</p>
<p>“Of course I didn’t,” Rosalyn shoots back. “I’m old enough to know that <em>monsters aren’t real</em>.”</p>
<p>“But you thought there might be something,” Steve says. He’s got his arms crossed and he’s leaning against the wall by the window, watching Rosalyn investigate the hole in the floor.</p>
<p>“I heard…noises,” Rosalyn admits, like she’s challenging either Steve or Robin to say anything about it. “And I thought I was seeing shadows moving, these last couple of nights.” She looks up to meet Steve’s stare with a powerful glare of her own. “I know I’m going to regret asking, but – what <em>is</em> it?”</p>
<p>“We’ve been calling it the Upside Down,” Steve says, with a glance over at Robin. “It’s like…a shadow, or a reflection, I guess, of our world. Sort of.”</p>
<p>“And it’s got monsters.”</p>
<p>Steve nods. “A couple years ago, something from there snatched a kid from our hometown. We’ve pretty much been dealing with monster shit from it ever since.”</p>
<p>“Pretending that that isn’t as completely bonkers as it is…why ‘Upside Down’?” Rosalyn asks, also looking over at Robin. Robin doesn’t know why she’s the one they’re looking at. She’s hardly the expert here.</p>
<p>She shrugs one shoulder, folding both arms around her middle and tucking her hands in under them. “Steve’s posse of kids named it. I wasn’t there to stop them.”</p>
<p>“’Posse of’ -”</p>
<p>“Friends. Back in Hawkins.” Steve does a little uncomfortable wrinkle of his nose, looking down at the hole instead of at Rosalyn’s face. “They’re a few years younger than us. I got roped into babysitting one time and then everything got intense.”</p>
<p>For some reason, this makes Rosalyn smile. She’s got a nice smile. It makes her look instantly less homicidal.</p>
<p>“Tell me about it,” she says, with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. And then, gesturing at the hole, “So…what do we do with this?”</p>
<p>Which is also weird. But also, kind of cool. She doesn’t waste any time wondering how any of this is possible or what if it’s not really what it looks like or how do Steve and Robin <em>know</em> and do they have any proof and this is crazy. She just accepts it, and starts looking for a solution. Robin’s pretty sure <em>she</em> wasn’t that cool when the mall started spitting up Russians and monsters. Although – if she does say so herself – she <em>was</em> pretty damn cool. All things considered.</p>
<p>Steve’s got a sort of deer-in-headlights look at Rosalyn’s question, though. Robin can’t blame him. The dingus is great in the clutch, but planning is…not his strongest suit.</p>
<p>Rosalyn seems to pick up on that pretty quickly, turning to Robin with an eyebrow raised. Robin wishes she had literally anything intelligent and useful to say. “We probably need to close that before it lets anything nasty through.”</p>
<p>Rosalyn gives the bear trap, and the can of AquaNet and the Bic that Robin’s abandoned next to it, a pointed look. “Let me guess, a board and some nails aren’t going to cut it.”</p>
<p>Robin looks up at Steve, who shakes his head. Rosalyn nods grimly. And then she pushes up the sleeves of her sweatshirt the way she did when Robin was moving in and she helped haul two big cardboard boxes full of books and sheet music up the stairs. She has, Robin is aware it’s weird to notice, really nice forearms.</p>
<p>“Any ideas what <em>will</em>?” Rosalyn asks.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Thirty minutes, countless tentacles, half a can of AquaNet, and one fire alarm later, a sprinkler-soaked and black-goop-covered Rosalyn finds herself staring down something else she’s far from familiar with: defeat.</p>
<p>Nothing they’ve tried has had any effect on the hole, except apparently to piss off whatever lives on the other side. If anything, it’s only gotten <em>bigger</em>. And now they’re locked out of the dorms until the fire trucks leave.</p>
<p>Rosalyn’s probably not going to get back her damage deposit on the room.</p>
<p>She might be a little bit in shock. She’s definitely vibrating with adrenaline and the violin-sting shivers of fear. Maybe that’s from the chill night air that’s trying to work its hooks into her. Maybe it’s from the getting grabbed by an…<em>appendage</em> apparently made out of tar and Slinkies and dragged halfway into the nightmare hole in the floor before Robin lit the damn thing on fire. Or maybe it’s from the fact that <em>there was actually a monster under her bed</em>.</p>
<p>Somehow, it doesn’t seem fair. The world, thus far, has at least made sense. Things operate according to observable, measurable forces. One plus one equals two.</p>
<p>This is like her roommate’s weird not-quite-boyfriend with his ridiculous not-quite-moustache had walked in and told her one plus one was three, and Rosalyn had done the math herself and found out he was right and she’d been doing it wrong all along.</p>
<p>“That spider-thing at the mall had tentacles kind of like that,” Robin says, contemplatively, wiping the back of one hand across her forehead and smearing tarry black gunk in its wake. It kind of, Rosalyn thinks, realising she sounds hysterical even in her own head, complements the smudgy eyeliner that picks out the blue of her eyes. “But it couldn’t disappear and reappear like that, could it?”</p>
<p>“Nope,” Steve agrees, staring at the fire truck’s flashing lights. At least they haven’t left the siren on. His knuckles are still white on the handle of the bat. “The demo-whatsit could. But it didn’t have tentacles.”</p>
<p>“So, either this is something new -”</p>
<p>It’s hard to sound grim when you’re wearing a crop top, but somehow Steve pulls it off. “Or maybe it’s something old that’s got a new toy.”</p>
<p>Rosalyn’s lips feel dry. She licks them, and winces when she gets a bitter taste of the black goop. Hopefully it’s not poisonous.</p>
<p>She stares at the door of the dorm building, propped open with its glass reflecting the flashing red lights on top of the fire truck, and then turns her gaze up to the ominously dark square of the window of the room she and Robin share.</p>
<p>And feels a bloom of slow, simmering fury well up all through her. This is <em>stupid</em>. Her world makes sense. <em>Made</em> sense, until some slimy little would-be land-kraken decided that the perfect place to start its quest for world domination would be under her bed. Who does it think it is? Who does it think it’s <em>messing</em> with?</p>
<p>Because Rosalyn is no fainting scream queen. She doesn’t let people push her around, and she <em>doesn’t</em> back down. When Charlie told her she was a flake, she told him he was an ex-boyfriend. She’s the only babysitter who never let Calvin scare her off. No way she’s lying down and giving up the dorm room <em>she</em> paid for to a <em>monster</em>.</p>
<p>But…not backing down doesn’t mean she can’t step back for a second to think rationally about this.</p>
<p>“Toys, huh?” she says, to herself. And then, “Then let’s talk to an expert on toys. <em>And</em> monsters.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The pay phone in the lobby of the boys’ first-year dorm is in better shape than the one in the girls’. Robin wonders why that is. She floats a few theories and comes down somewhere between “boys use phone less” and “it gets wrecked by drunk people so often that it’s been replaced more recently”. The truth probably lies somewhere between the two.</p>
<p>“This place is…nice,” Steve offers, looking around. Robin snorts.</p>
<p>“You can say it’s a dump. You won’t hurt my feelings.”</p>
<p>“No, really,” Steve says, and Robin notices, too late, the almost hungry look he’s giving the shitty broken-down lobby couches, the pot of free coffee for students back in the RA’s glassed-in office, the wall of brochures, the giant bulletin board with its extremely cheesy message about safe sex. “I’m happy for you. I mean, obviously the monster’s an issue, but -”</p>
<p>“It’s not Hawkins,” Robin says, and Steve nods.</p>
<p>“It’s not Hawkins.”</p>
<p>Robin considers for a second, before perching herself on the arm of one of the mysteriously-stained couches, tucking one leg up to her chest and leaning her chin on her knee. “Yeah. The student housing sucks, though. Next year, I’m gonna look at apartments instead.” She looks over at Rosalyn, at the pay phone, before turning back to Steve. It’s always easier to be sincere when she doesn’t have to look the other person in the face, but…she owes Steve this much. “I’ll need a roommate, though. And I really don’t know anybody here well enough to want to live with them.”</p>
<p>Steve looks confused for a moment, before his eyebrows both shoot up. “Wait, you’re asking me to -”</p>
<p>“Move out of Hawkins and in with me? I thought that much was obvious.”</p>
<p>Steve shakes his head, not meeting Robin’s eyes. “The kids -”</p>
<p>“Will be sixteen. Wasn’t that how old you were when you went on your own first monster hunt?” Robin follows Steve’s gaze over to Rosalyn. Her scowl is really impressive. Robin hasn’t had a chance before tonight to see how scary she can actually be. It’s…kind of attractive. In an extremely there-is-something-wrong-with-Robin-besides-the-obvious kind of way. “Seriously. Are you really planning to spend the rest of your life in a place that makes you miserable, just in case something tries to come after the kids again?”</p>
<p>“It doesn’t make me <em>miserable -</em>”</p>
<p>“The kids aren’t even all there anymore. And, obviously, monster shit isn’t stuck within the Hawkins city limits. Are you even planning to leave once they’ve all graduated? Or are you just going to stick around for one more year every year because there’s always another crop of middle schoolers to protect, you’re always this close to making manager at the video store, you’ll always have some other lame excuse?”</p>
<p>“Hey,” Steve says, weakly. “Are you even allowed to know me like that?”</p>
<p>“Of course, I’m your best friend. And as your best friend, I’m telling you that you need to get the hell out of that town before you turn into Chief Hopper. Or your <em>dad</em>.”</p>
<p>“Hey. Take that back.”</p>
<p>“Fine. Not <em>your</em> dad, that’s never gonna happen. But <em>somebody’s</em> dad.”</p>
<p>“That actually doesn’t sound like the worst thing that could happen,” Steve says, quietly. Robin stares at him for a long moment in disbelief before she realises where she messed up.</p>
<p>“No, I meant like – Ted Wheeler, or somebody, not – not <em>with</em> <em>your own kid -</em>” She shakes her head. “Just – come share an apartment with me. One year. If you hate it so much, you can go back to <em>Hawkins</em> once the school year ends. But – you can work a minimum-wage job anywhere. And you can’t spend your entire life in the same sad small town, pining after your high school crush, like the guy in a Bruce Springsteen song or something.”</p>
<p>She thinks about it for a minute, studying the set of Steve’s expression, before pulling out the big guns. “Besides. I miss you.”</p>
<p>Steve tucks a lock of plastered-flat, soggy hair back behind one ear. Robin knows him well enough by now to know when he’s trying not to smile. “Fine. I’ll think about it. But if you pick an apartment that sucks -”</p>
<p>“Oh, obviously all bets would be off,” Robin agrees. “If I pick an apartment that <em>sucks</em>.”</p>
<p>She doesn’t manage to keep a straight face for long. Neither does Steve. Robin’s not sure which one of them breaks first. She just can’t handle the way his face twitches when he’s really trying not to laugh.</p>
<p>The RA, locked safely in his glassed-in office, gives them both an alarmed stare. Robin can just imagine what they look like, two kids laughing their heads off in the sickly fluorescent and the red glare from the fire trucks’ lights, covered in unidentifiable tarry gunk and drenched to the skin on a clear, cloudless night.</p>
<p>She looks down, and realises that Steve’s also still carrying the bat.</p>
<p>Somehow, that just makes everything funnier.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Rosalyn has no idea what she’s going to say to a seven-year-old’s parents to justify calling after midnight. Especially since she’s calling to talk to their <em>kid</em>.</p>
<p>For once, though, luck is on her side. The phone only rings once before there’s a <em>click</em> and Calvin’s voice, sounding annoyed, says, “What’re you doing calling at this hour? You’re going to wake up my parents!”</p>
<p>“What am <em>I</em> – what are <em>you</em> doing up at this hour? Shouldn’t you be in bed?”</p>
<p>The voice on the phone changes from annoyed to angry. “Oh, I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you!” There’s a lot of hushed whispering, sounding very one-sided. Rosalyn catches “It’s <em>Rosalyn!</em>”, and then, laden with disgust, “No, I will <em>not</em> ask her for a goodnight smooch! What is <em>wrong</em> with tigers?”</p>
<p>“Calvin?” she says, and the whispering cuts out immediately.</p>
<p>“I won’t speak to you without my attorney present.”</p>
<p>“Listen up, you little snot.” Rosalyn glances back over her shoulder. Steve and Robin are laughing about something over by the couch. The RA still looks a little too scared to come out of his office. There’s nobody else around. “I know your ‘attorney’ is that stuffed tiger, and I know he’s with you, so start talking. What can you tell me about monsters?”</p>
<p>There’s a moment of crackling silence from the phone. Robin’s laugh echoes over it, from back by the couch, high and bright and purely happy. A stab of inexplicable envy pulses in Rosalyn’s chest, and she grinds her teeth and grips the phone tighter. She doesn’t know how Robin can sound so carefree and happy on what is inarguably the worst night of Rosalyn’s life so far.</p>
<p>It’s probably got something to do with <em>Steve</em>. ‘Just a friend’, Rosalyn’s foot.</p>
<p>“What kind of monsters?” Calvin asks, at last, warily.</p>
<p>“The kind that come from under your bed.”</p>
<p>Calvin’s voice goes distant, like he’s holding the receiver away from his face. “This isn’t really Rosalyn, is it! Nice try, but you won’t fool <em>me</em> into getting eaten!”</p>
<p>“Calvin, you cretin, this is serious!”</p>
<p>“Sorry, Roz. On the advice of counsel, I’m no longer speaking to you.”</p>
<p>“You miserable little troll -” Robin’s laughter cuts off, and Rosalyn turns to see everybody staring at her. She lowers her voice, leaning back against the wall and squeezing her eyes shut as she presses the palm of the hand not holding the receiver against her forehead. “Ugh. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but – Hobbes can have <em>one</em> smooch if he changes his advice, okay?”</p>
<p>“What? No way! Hobbes is way too loyal, he’d never fall for -” Calvin breaks off, there’s a moment of silence, and then a shout of, “<em>What!?</em> No, I will <em>not</em> ask her if she means <em>on the mouth</em>! You disgust me, you traitor! I’m revoking your lifelong dictatorship of G.R.O.S.S.!”</p>
<p>Rosalyn pinches the bridge of her nose as the one-sided argument rages on the other end of the phone. She doesn’t open her eyes.</p>
<p>“Look,” she says, at last, when the argument shows no signs of slowing down. “I just need to know what you do when you’ve got monsters under the bed. How do you get around them? Or get rid of them?”</p>
<p>“What, so you can learn my secrets and get my while my defenses are down? How do I know this is even really Rosalyn?”</p>
<p>“You flushed my science notes,” Rosalyn rattles off, still not opening her eyes. She’s starting to wonder why she’d thought this was such a good idea. “You locked me out of my house and told my boyfriend to break up with me when he called, there were all those times with the suction darts -”</p>
<p>“Okay, you’re Rosalyn,” Calvin admits, grudgingly.</p>
<p>“So?”</p>
<p>“So…” Calvin descends into a thoughtful silence. “What’s in it for me?”</p>
<p>“What’s <em>in it</em> for -”</p>
<p>“Yeah. What’s in it for me? I can’t just go handing out my most closely-guarded secrets to anybody who asks. Don’t get me wrong, the grovelling is nice, but I’m really going to need to see some cold hard cash change hands before I provide intel to my mortal enemy.”</p>
<p>“<em>Cold hard cash?!</em> I’m not giving you <em>money</em>, you tiny Capone!”</p>
<p>“All right, then, let’s hear your best offer.”</p>
<p>“I’ll let you live to see your eighth birthday, how’s <em>that</em> for an offer -”</p>
<p>“He’s asking you to pay him, huh?”</p>
<p>Rosalyn starts. She hadn’t noticed Steve coming up behind her.</p>
<p>“I got this,” she says, clutching a hand over the receiver protectively.</p>
<p>“Yeah, I can see that.” Rosalyn flushes, and glares. Steve, unfortunately, doesn’t seem as affected by the glare as elementary schoolers are. “But you can offer him free movie rentals for a year, if you gotta.” His smile really is charming, damn him. “I’ve got connections.”</p>
<p>“Who’s that? What’s he saying? Rosalyn? Is that your <em>boyfriend</em>? He doesn’t sound like Charlie. Are you still there?”</p>
<p>“I’m still here,” Rosalyn says into the phone, through gritted teeth, not taking her glare from Steve’s face. Looking away now would feel too much like backing down. “And that’s not my <em>boyfriend</em>. Free movies for a year, kiddo. Take it or leave it.”</p>
<p>There’s a flurry of hurried whispering.</p>
<p>“We’ll take it,” Calvin says, after a moment. “What? Oh, fine! <em>And</em> Hobbes wants his smooch.”</p>
<p>Rosalyn doesn’t think she’s going to have any back molars left after this, the way she’s grinding them. “<em>Fine</em>. Now. Monster hunting. Spill.”</p>
<p>“Uh. Baseball bat?”</p>
<p>“Tried that. With nails in it. Didn’t work.”</p>
<p>“With <em>nails</em> in it! Cool! Oh boy, I should put nails in <em>my </em>baseball bat. Can’t you just see Susie’s face when I -”</p>
<p>“Calvin…don’t.” Rosalyn doesn’t know how to finish that sentence, but it feels like a complete thought all on its own. “Whatever you’re thinking. Just don’t.”</p>
<p>“But -”</p>
<p>“<em>Don’t</em>.” Rosalyn drums her fingers on the plastic of the phone receiver. “Any other suggestions?”</p>
<p>There’s more whispering.</p>
<p>“Decoy?” Calvin suggests. “Monsters are pretty stupid. Dress a pillow up in your pyjamas, lower it down over the side of the bed.” There’s a pause, and Calvin adds, “Oh, and Hobbes says that any large predator can smell fear, so don’t -”</p>
<p>“<em>Calvin!</em>”</p>
<p>“Oops,” Calvin says, before Rosalyn can ask what the muffled yell in the background was. “Gotta go, Roz. Yeah, yeah, I’ll remind her she owes you that smooch, you disgusting -”</p>
<p>“<em>What</em> are you doing out of bed? Who’s that on the phone? <em>Why are all these cans of tuna open?!</em>”</p>
<p>“Gottagobye,” Calvin says, and then there’s a <em>click</em> and a dial tone.</p>
<p>Rosalyn stares at the receiver for a long moment. Then she hangs it, carefully, in the cradle, with a smile at Steve. It doesn’t even feel convincing on her face.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Decoy</em>.</p>
<p>It’s not the worst idea. Except for the part where this is a very real monster and not likely to be fooled by a pillow dressed in Rosalyn’s pyjamas. Which means one of them has to be the decoy.</p>
<p>Robin volunteers, of course. After a moment’s hesitation. She remembers what that meat-Jello-spider thing did to that blond jerk at the mall. And it’s not that she doesn’t trust the other two to be able to fight it off before it rips her open and lays its horrible flesh-tadpoles in her sternum, it’s just – well, no, it’s exactly that. Those tentacles are <em>fast</em>. And <em>strong</em>.</p>
<p>But she looks over the other two, and thinks about either of them getting torn open and half-eaten, and feels even worse. So…decoy Robin it is.</p>
<p>There’s just one tiny little problem with Robin’s foolproof master plan. And that is that Steve is the most self-sacrificial sonuvabitch she’s ever had the misfortune to meet. And, as Rosalyn points out, it’s <em>her</em> bed. Either of the others being in it will look suspicious.</p>
<p>“Well, we can’t <em>all</em> be the decoy,” Robin points out, quite reasonably, she thinks.</p>
<p>“It’s my plan,” Rosalyn repeats. “It grabbed <em>me</em>. <em>And</em> it’s my bed.”</p>
<p>It doesn’t take the firefighters too long to figure out that nothing in the dorm building is actually on fire – anymore – and clear out. Robin, Steve, and Rosalyn join the crush making their way back inside. There is much loud lamentation of soggy beds and ruined homework. Nobody says anything about the tarry gunk all three of them are spattered with, although Robin does get a couple of strange looks.</p>
<p>It’s an all-girls dorm, so Steve gets some even stranger looks when they head into the bathroom to clean up. But he doesn’t seem to notice the first two, and gives the girl who shoots him the third a smile so charming that she turns bright red and hurries out of the room like <em>she’s</em> the one who’s not supposed to be there. Robin wonders how Steve got so comfortable hanging out in a women’s bathroom. Whether he’s done this before, or if he’s just that confident that, no matter he goes, people will be happy to have him there.</p>
<p>Even thinking about it makes Robin uncomfortable. She remembers King Steve, of course, but it’s hard to mentally connect the jock-jerk whose circle had only intersected with hers when Carol Perkins was feeling especially indiscriminate in her targets with her best friend, who works for minimum wage in a stupid vest and plays Dungeons and Dragons with high school juniors and cried at the ending of <em>E.T.</em> Sometimes Robin actually manages to forget that Steve really was a popular kid, and for a reason, that he isn’t – or hasn’t always been – just a confused loser muddling his way through life like she is.</p>
<p>And then something like this always happens to remind her.</p>
<p>Rosalyn, at least, doesn’t seem particularly impressed. Or maybe she doesn’t notice. She pushes past Steve to make a beeline for the sink, splashing water into her face over and over again until the last of the monster goop washes down the drain. Then she surfaces with a gasp.</p>
<p>“I’m going to need to change into my PJs if this is going to be convincing,” she says. For the first time, there’s a waver of uncertainty in her voice as she says, “You guys wait in the hall until you hear me scream.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Like all the best-laid plans, it has to go wrong somehow.</p>
<p>It’s hard to scream with a tentacle wrapped tight around your throat, cutting off your air. It’s even harder to scream when you’ve been dragged down into a dark, disgusting underworld, out of earshot and reach of everyone you’ve ever known.</p>
<p>The tarry black tentacles deposit Rosalyn, with a jarring thump, on a floor that goes <em>squish</em> underneath her. She sucks in lungsful of sour air, grateful just to be able to breathe again.</p>
<p>And then she gets a good look at the thing looming in front of her.</p>
<p>The tentacles, it looks like, are all peeling off from a huge, amorphous mass, a lump of gritty, gleaming, molten-looking gunk that’s enveloped the entire north wall of this weird mirror version of Rosalyn’s dorm room, swallowing up its single window. She’s not sure if the blue darkness of the room is due to that, or if it’s just the way the light works here. She can’t tell, in the dark, where the monstrous body ends and the weird shifting vegetation that seems to be overgrowing the floor begins, or if they’re one and the same.</p>
<p>Somewhere in the dark mass, there’s a glint of something that might be teeth.</p>
<p>Rosalyn pushes herself to her feet. Her oversized pyjama t-shirt and shorts are stained with sticky black goo. She’s not sure it’ll wash out. She might end up having to throw them away. “Ick.”</p>
<p>The whispery voice that emerges from somewhere in the darkness of the wall of pulsating fleshy…<em>whatever</em> is strange. It has a wet, unpleasant quality, like somebody talking through a thick layer of mucous. And it’s echoey. But less like a shout in a church, and more like a bunch of voices talking all at once.</p>
<p>“<em>Rosalyn.</em>”</p>
<p>“Oh, you know my name,” Rosalyn says, feeling her heart jackhammering. “That’s really scary, I’m so intimidated.”</p>
<p>The chuckle that rolls out of the mass is low and sticky and makes Rosalyn feel like she needs several showers. “<em>We know. You are alone here, in our domain. Weaponless. Defenseless. Friendless. Entirely in our power. Say whatever you like. We know your fear. We can </em>taste<em> it.</em>” And there’s a noise like the most enormous pair of lips in the world being smacked.</p>
<p>Rosalyn recoils in disgust. She gives the – monster? – her best scowl, but without eyes to aim it at, she feels like it’s bouncing off.</p>
<p>
  <em>Hobbes says that any large predator can smell fear.</em>
</p>
<p>Rosalyn takes a deep breath of the foul-smelling air. The little icy silver stings of fear are still shooting through her, but she stares down the shapeless mass in front of her and thinks about her science notes. About a locked front door and the child she’s meant to be responsible for alone on the other side.</p>
<p>Large predators aren’t the only ones who can smell fear. Small children can, too. And Rosalyn learned a long time ago that the only way to beat them is not to be afraid.</p>
<p>And the best way to not be afraid? Is to get <em>pissed</em>.</p>
<p>The monster voice has moved on to some kind of villain monologue, with occasional interjections to argue with itself. Something about Rosalyn making a perfect spy, something about a trap. Rosalyn breathes in, and out, and thinks about how <em>stupid</em> this whole situation is. How ridiculous this terrible nightmare-shadow of her dorm room is. How she’s in trouble with the fire department, probably, and failing Stats, and missing out on what are supposed to be some of the best years of her life, and indebted to <em>Calvin</em> of all people. And how it’s all because of a <em>monster</em> under her <em>bed</em>.</p>
<p>“All right,” Rosalyn says, at last, interrupting the monologue. “Can it, creepo. I’m not doing <em>anything</em> for you. You’re going to put me right back in my dorm room, safe and sound, and close up that hole in the floor and never bother any of us again. And you’re going to do it before I count to three.”</p>
<p>She can <em>hear</em> the sneer in the monster’s voice as it says, “<em>Give us one good reason why we should do as you say</em>.”</p>
<p>It takes everything in Rosalyn not to smile.</p>
<p>She’s heard exactly this logic from Calvin more times than she can count. And what was it he’d said?</p>
<p><em>Monsters are pretty stupid</em>.</p>
<p>“One,” Rosalyn says, crossing her arms, putting her weight onto one hip, and staring the black morass down.</p>
<p>“<em>You are entirely in our power</em>,” the monster voice repeats, sounding irritated. But – Rosalyn thinks that’s a note of uncertainty she can hear in its oozing, multitudinous voice. “<em>There is nothing you can do to harm us -</em>”</p>
<p>“Two,” Rosalyn says. And gives her foot a tap.</p>
<p>“<em>Your friends cannot save you. Even now, they struggle in vain to reach you -</em>”</p>
<p>“You think I’m waiting for Steve and Robin?” Rosalyn asks, letting disbelief bleed through her voice. “You think I need them to make your life miserable? Do you even know who I <em>am</em>?”</p>
<p>There’s a sound like the largest throat in the world being cleared.</p>
<p>“<em>Rosalyn</em>,” the voice repeats, but it sounds more like a question than it did last time.</p>
<p>“That’s right.” Rosalyn tips her chin up, tossing her ponytail back over one shoulder. “Tell me. Ever heard of a kid named Calvin?”</p>
<p>There’s a sudden, absolute silence, an absence of a hundred little wet, unpleasant noises of movement that Rosalyn had somehow managed to tune out, the ever-shifting mass before and below her freezing in place.</p>
<p>“<em>You’re</em> Calvin?” the voice says, and there’s a note of slow-dawning horror in it.</p>
<p>“Worse,” Rosalyn says, finally allowing herself a slow smile. “<em>Way</em> worse.”</p>
<p>“<em>What could be </em>worse<em> than </em>Calvin?”</p>
<p>“I am,” Rosalyn says. “I’m the only person he’s ever truly feared.”</p>
<p>She picks a point in the amorphous gloop in front of her and stares it down, willing herself not to blink no matter how the noxious air stings her eyes. The smile feels real on her face as she says, “I’m his babysitter.”</p>
<p>She pauses a moment for effect before adding, “And I’m at two and a half.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The hole in the floor under Rosalyn’s bed leaves a dark stain when it closes, the only sign that it had ever been there.</p>
<p>Rosalyn herself seems terribly smug about it. All she said at first, after the softball-sized hole that neither Steve or Robin had been able to force or cajole into opening any wider had suddenly yawned open and spat out an uninjured and triumphant-looking Rosalyn before abruptly closing without a trace, was, “Well, I’m going to have to smooch a stuffed tiger, but it was worth it.”</p>
<p>The full story had come out, eventually. And now that they’ve all had long, hot showers (especially hot for Rosalyn, who had to be confirmed not to be possessed) and are feeling more human again, Rosalyn and Steve are trading babysitting war stories. Rosalyn has a seemingly endless supply. Steve’s really only got the two, but they’re doozies.</p>
<p>Robin doesn’t babysit. She’s never really been comfortable around children, especially not one-on-one. Dustin’s all right when Steve’s around to act as a buffer, but Robin really just never knows what she can say and what she should keep to herself around kids, or how much they know and don’t know. She’d asked Dustin if he could read yet the first time they’d met. He’d very disappointedly informed her that he was fourteen.</p>
<p>Rosalyn’s got a nice laugh. Robin doesn’t know if she’s ever heard it before tonight. Before <em>Steve</em> got it out of her.</p>
<p>A full hour goes by before Steve glances over and seems to notice for the first time that Robin’s been curled up under the covers on her bed, not saying anything, since she got back from the bathroom. “Shit,” he says. “I completely lost track of time, you guys must be exhausted. Somebody point me at the student lounge, I’ll go bunk down, let you sleep.”</p>
<p>“Oh,” Rosalyn says, like she’s just remembering about sleep. “You can take the bed. I’ll take the couch -”</p>
<p>Steve brushes her off with a wave of his hand. “No way. It’s your bed. Besides, I don’t think I could sleep at all knowing there was a monster under there.”</p>
<p>There’s a moment of awkward silence.</p>
<p>“Okay,” Robin says, at last. “Student lounge is too far away to hear if somebody yells. Steve, you take my bed, I’ll sleep on the floor.”</p>
<p>After several more minutes of arguing, that’s what they end up doing. Robin lies on the pile of pillows they’ve made between the two beds, wrapped in Rosalyn’s quilt, and stares into the dark space under Rosalyn’s bed. It’s not at all conducive to sweet dreams, but Robin’s pretty sure turning her back on it would be worse. And Rosalyn’s quilt smells fantastically of strawberry shampoo and Girl. Robin would face a thousand monsters for a chance to wrap up in it like this.</p>
<p>They lie there in silence for long enough that Robin can hear a soft snore start to rise from the bed behind her. Rosalyn’s breathing evens out, too, but just as Robin’s starting to resign herself to a long, sleepless, lonely night of starting at shadows, Rosalyn’s voice whispers out of the dark. “Are you still awake?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Robin whispers back.</p>
<p>Steve snores softly into the silence.</p>
<p>“Monsters, huh,” Rosalyn says, after a moment.</p>
<p>“Yup.” Robin pauses. “Just be grateful there weren’t any evil Russians this time.”</p>
<p>“I’m not even gonna ask.”</p>
<p>The quiet, this time, seems warmer somehow. Less ominous. More comfortable.</p>
<p>“So what’s the deal with Steve?” Rosalyn asks, with no warning, and Robin chokes on her own spit.</p>
<p>“What? What do you mean, what’s the deal with Steve?”</p>
<p>“I <em>mean</em>, what’s the deal with Steve? With <em>you</em> and Steve?” Rosalyn is quiet for a long second before she says, “You seem like you make each other happy.”</p>
<p>Robin chews on that. “Yeah,” she agrees, eventually. “Yeah, I think we do. I mean, I know he makes <em>me</em> happy.” She has to pause to shake her head in disbelief at herself. Less than a year ago, she’d never have imagined herself saying that.</p>
<p>There’s silence from Rosalyn’s bed, for long enough that Robin feels a little sting of paranoia, a sharp urge to check and make sure Rosalyn’s still there.</p>
<p>“We’re not <em>dating</em> or anything,” Robin says, when the silence starts to get uncomfortable.</p>
<p>“Yet,” Rosalyn says. There’s a rustle from the bed. “He seems…pretty okay. You could do worse.”</p>
<p>“No, no, we – we’re friends. We talked about this. Dating’s not on the table for us.”</p>
<p>“You say that now.”</p>
<p>Robin can’t resist the urge to roll her eyes, even though she knows Rosalyn can’t see it in the dark and from up on the bed. The pillow collapses under her elbow as she props her head up in one hand. The floor is hard underneath it. “Look. If you want to ask him out, just do it. He’s single. I don’t want to date him. There’s nothing standing in your way, except the fact that he won’t leave Hawkins.”</p>
<p>“You’re honestly telling me you wouldn’t have a problem with it?” Rosalyn asks. “If I went out with Steve, you wouldn’t care.”</p>
<p>That’s not something Robin can honestly say. But then, she can’t exactly tell Rosalyn the real reason she’d have an issue. And it wouldn’t be fair to keep Rosalyn from dating anybody – even her own best friend – because Robin is too much of a coward to just speak up.</p>
<p>“I don’t <em>want</em> to date Steve,” Rosalyn continues, and Robin’s heart thumps, painfully, once in her throat. Rosalyn’s lying. She’s got to be lying. She’s trying to spare Robin’s feelings, maintain a good roommate relationship – “He’s not my type. At all.” She laughs, quietly, in the dark. Robin could listen to it for hours. “When he first got here, I was scared you were going to try to set us up. Thanks for not doing that.”</p>
<p>“Any time,” Robin’s mouth says, even as her brain cringes away from her tongue. <em>Any time?!</em> “Just, uh, just for the record. What <em>is</em> your type?”</p>
<p>“Not stuffed tigers, that’s for sure.” Rosalyn is quiet for a bit. “I don’t really know. I went out with Charlie because he asked if I wanted to, and then I never saw a reason to stop. I haven’t really dated anyone else.”</p>
<p>“You’ve gotta know what kinds of guys you like to see in magazine ads or movies, though, right?” Robin presses.</p>
<p>“I don’t know. I haven’t really looked. I mean, I’ve been dating Charlie since the eighth grade.”</p>
<p>“And you thought – what? That looking at guys you’d never meet would be like cheating?”</p>
<p>“More like, what would be the point? I had Charlie.”</p>
<p>Robin lets out a long breath, sinking back into her pillows. “Roz. What did you think, you’d just get married to your eighth grade boyfriend?”</p>
<p>This time, Rosalyn’s quiet for so long that Robin wonders if she’s fallen asleep.</p>
<p>“Not really,” Rosalyn admits, finally, and it sounds muffled, like maybe she’s saying it into her pillow. “I don’t know.”</p>
<p>It’s Robin’s turn to be quiet. She stares up at a ceiling she can’t really see in the dark, thinking hard.</p>
<p>“So…” she starts, hoping that she’ll know where she’s going with this by the time she reaches the end of the sentence. “If you don’t really have a type, or at least you don’t know if you have a type, but you know for sure what’s not your type…would you ever take a chance on somebody who’s not <em>not</em> your type, but who you never considered might be your type?”</p>
<p>She waits, her breath caught in her lungs.</p>
<p>“What?” Rosalyn asks.</p>
<p>Robin lets her breath out in one long gust. “Nothing. Forget it. I said nothing -”</p>
<p>“No, Robin, what are you talking about?”</p>
<p>“Me, you dingus,” Robin’s mouth says, as Robin’s brain tries frantically to stomp on the brakes and discovers they’ve been cut. “Would you ever date me.”</p>
<p>She counts a slow and silent ten in her head. Maybe, if she’s lucky, Rosalyn will be so grateful that Robin saved her from the monster that one time that she won’t tell the entire dorm about this and make it impossible for Robin to get another roommate assignment when Rosalyn goes to the RA and requests a different roommate, because <em>obviously</em> she isn’t going to want Robin to stick around after this –</p>
<p>“Oh,” Rosalyn’s voice says, very quietly, in the dark.</p>
<p>Robin sucks in a breath and holds it.</p>
<p>“<em>Oh</em>,” Rosalyn repeats, and maybe Robin’s thinking wishfully again, but she thinks – she hopes – it sounds more like realisation than horror. “Ohhhhh. Okay.”</p>
<p>Robin chokes on her tongue. “<em>Okay?</em>”</p>
<p>“Well…” Rosalyn’s voice still sounds a little uncertain, but thoughtful. “That would explain why I’d rather babysit – for <em>Calvin</em> – than go on dates with Charlie.” It’s too dark to see her smile, but Robin can hear it in her voice. “And I’m pretty sure I’d rather kiss you than a stuffed tiger.”</p>
<p>Finally, <em>finally</em>, Robin’s brain connects with her mouth, for just long enough for her to say something brilliant for once. “Want to test that theory?”</p>
<p>“You know what? I think I really, really do.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“I can’t believe this. How come I always get blamed for everything?”</p>
<p>“Possibly because it’s usually your fault,” Hobbes offers. Calvin, as usual, ignores him.</p>
<p>“I’m a victim of an unjust system! I’ve been falsely accused! The court is prejudiced against me! Rosalyn called <em>me</em>, but do you think anyone will believe me? No! No, <em>I’m</em> the one who gets sent to bed without so much as a fair trial in front of a jury of my peers!”</p>
<p>“You <em>were</em> up past midnight. And you did open every can of tuna in the pantry.”</p>
<p>“Only because <em>you</em> threatened to <em>eat me</em> if you didn’t get a midnight snack!”</p>
<p>“Allegedly.” Hobbes presses a paw to his chest. “I don’t remember uttering any threats to that effect. Do you have any evidence?”</p>
<p>Calvin pauses in his rant just long enough to glare at Hobbes. “And you! Some attorney <em>you</em> are! You didn’t even try to get the charges dismissed! Too busy thinking about getting <em>smooched</em> by <em>Rosalyn</em>?”</p>
<p>Hobbes doesn’t have an answer for that, beyond the ear-to-ear smile he can’t keep off his face. “Yep. Yowza.”</p>
<p>“You’re a disgrace to tigerkind.” Calvin leans over the side of the bed. “Dad was so mad, he didn’t even check for monsters before putting us to bed. D’you think, if they’re busy bothering Rosalyn, they might leave us alone for tonight?”</p>
<p>He looks up and meets Hobbes’ eyes.</p>
<p>“I’ll get the baseball bat,” Hobbes says.</p>
<p>Calvin nods. “I’m pretty sure I left the hammer down by the coffee table. I wonder if Dad has any longer nails?”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>…</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>“CALVIN!!”</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I tried to make a monster that was one part C&amp;H monsters-under-the-bed, one part ST serious-business. I hope it turned out all right!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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